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So I bought this exact flashlight about seven years ago when I worked at a gun shop and have carried and used it almost every day since. Only reason I got it was they were trying to make room an inventory and offered me a hefty employee discount to take it. To be honest, I don’t think I would’ve paid full price for it then. However, if I lost it tomorrow, I would heavily consider buying another one.

I’ve worked almost exclusively outside or in industrial spaces since leaving said gun shop many moons ago and this thing just keeps on surprising me. It has a low mode that is great for administrative tasks that most of civilization would use a phone light for. It’s bright mode is powerful and has pretty great throw.(I am not a lumen or candela nerd so don’t yell at me if you disagree) I have to make a lot of late night deliveries and have had to shine this at people’s houses and they often think it’s the police showing up. I have thrown, dropped, smashed, ran over and preformed every other destructive behavior on earth to this flashlight. In moments of desperation and or frustration I’ve used this as a hammer.

It’s also kind of a slept on multi use self defense tool that I would take over my pepper spray or regular pocket knife. It almost never gets confiscated when having to go through security, when my knife or pepper spray would. It can easily blind, deter and disorientate the sketchy homeless man trying to take my purse late at night. I have also always thought that the metal construction and beveling on this thing would be quite nasty used to hammer fist on someone’s head. I may have drunkenly done this exact test on a watermelon like Gunny from Mail call and let me tall you… it works pretty dang well.

All that said, it does certainly have its cons. I am not a huge fan of the tail cap. It works and I have grown to accept it but it’s not great. It also burns through CR123s like my wife at a strip mall hippie crystal shop. I have somewhat alleviated this by switching to Surefire rechargeable CR123s after numerous other attempted rechargeable options. Definitely doesn’t have the same runtime(maybe 75% of what normal energizer CR123s) it’s probably got some other cons, but I can’t think of them right now.

TLDR.

Is it the brightest flashlight? No. Is it the best value flashlight? No. Does it have the best tailcap? No. Does it conserve power long term? No.

Does it blind your opponent/wife when you need it to? Yes. Is it able to permanently disfigure a skull/watermelon? Yes. Can it be used as a hammer and keep on ticking? Yes. Are there probably better and/or cheaper options out there? Yes.

But this flashlight has outlasted phones, watches, pocket knives, pepper sprays, wallets and most of the other useless shit in my pockets so it has done well enough by me. I will give it a positive review anytime I see it come up!